I’ve come to realize that being endlessly absorbed by AI slop and brainrot, especially Instagram reels constantly shared between friends, has taken a real toll on my mental health. I was being fed content I never asked for, and mainstream social media pushed me toward presenting myself in ways that felt fake. So, I decided to dive into self-hosting and the Fediverse. I still love social media, but I want it without the junk.

The appeal of decentralized platforms, especially when self-hosting, is about control: control of my data, my feed, and my experience. Browsing Mastodon without a single ad is refreshing. I can read posts from friends, or find conversations about tech and philosophy, without being bombarded by right-wing noise or irrelevant algorithmic junk. On Pixelfed, I can simply see pictures from friends and photographers, no ads, no AI filler, no endless reels clogging my DMs. On PeerTube, I can watch videos to learn something new without sitting through influencer fluff or fake enthusiasm.

The Fediverse feels closer to what the internet was meant to be: a space for real human beings, not products. It isn’t perfect, there are barriers to entry for less technical users, but it reminds me of the internet I first touched in the 1990s on dial-up. It’s about being yourself, making genuine connections, and growing as a person, not as “engagement.”

If you’re feeling the same frustrations with social media in 2025, I recommend giving the Fediverse a try. You don’t need to self-host or be super technical. There are plenty of popular, well-run servers (mastodon.social, pixelfed.social, lemmy.world) that work fine, and federation lets you follow and interact with people across different servers seamlessly. The protocol behind it all may be complex, but using something like Mastodon is no harder than signing up for X or Facebook. The difference is you won’t be treated like a product, you’ll be treated like a person.

Contents

• Switching to Mastodon from X
• Switching from Instagram to Pixelfed
  
  • Anonymous Instagram Viewing

  
  

• Switching from YouTube to PeerTube
  
  • Anonymous YouTube Options

  
  

• Facebook (I don’t care.)
• Others and Upcoming
• The Benefits of ActivityPub
• The Challenges of Self-Hosting
• Bonus: Text/Chat Alternatives
  
  • Matrix
  • Signal (and WhatsApp)

  
  

• tl;dr
• Find me on the Fediverse

Switching to Mastodon from X

Mastodon is a microblogging platform where you “toot” (I still say it) instead of tweet. It’s been around for nearly a decade and has built a strong, active federation of servers. The easiest path to get started is by joining mastodon.social, though you can always migrate your account to another server later on.

There’s also a limited bridge that allows partial communication with Bluesky accounts (which use a different protocol). You can enable this via Bridgy Fed. It requires Bluesky users to enable it on their end as well, so you won’t be able to follow everyone from Mastodon unless they’ve set it up.

You can also follow users from Threads (and vice versa from Mastodon) who have the beta Fediverse feature enabled in their settings.

Useful links:
– joinmastodon.org
– mastodon.social
– Mastodon Documentation

You can find me on Mastodon at @incentive@mastodon.circlewithadot.net

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Switching from Instagram to Pixelfed

Pixelfed is a Fediverse alternative to Instagram. While the desktop web app already supports “stories,” I haven’t found a mobile app that does. Personally, I’m more interested in photos anyway. For short-lived updates like stories, I prefer sharing those privately with close friends on Signal or WhatsApp (see more below).

What I find most satisfying about Pixelfed is that it feels like old Instagram, before reels and videos took over. The focus is squarely on photography, and the overall vibe feels far more alive and authentic than Instagram has in a long time.

Useful links:
– pixelfed.org
– pixelfed.social
– Pixelfed Documentation

You can find me on Pixelfed at @incentive@pixelfed.circlewithadot.net

Anonymous Instagram Viewing

For anonymous Instagram browsing, I’m not aware of any apps that replicate the FreeTube-style experience. Most options are web-based viewers. Use at your own risk, I can’t vouch for the safety of these services, but a quick search for “Instagram anonymous viewer” will turn up plenty of sites. With them, you can usually type in a username and browse public posts, highlights, and stories without logging in. It's not a pretty solution, but until someone builds out an app that can function like FreeTube with following (instead of just manually typing in accounts) it's not very practical.

Useful link:
– InstaStories Viewer Use at your own risk

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Switching from YouTube to PeerTube

PeerTube is a decentralized, open-source alternative to YouTube. Like other Fediverse services, you can choose from a variety of servers to join, and still follow or watch videos across the network. It’s smaller in scale than YouTube, but it avoids ads, algorithms, and corporate lock-in.

Useful link:
– joinpeertube.org

You can find me on PeerTube at @incentive@peertube.circlewithadot.net

Anonymous YouTube Options

For people who still want to access YouTube’s content without feeding the algorithm, FreeTube (desktop) and LibreTube (Android) are fantastic tools. Both allow you to search and watch videos anonymously, ad-free, and with full control over what shows up in your feed. They’re great for stripping away all the “recommended slop” and just watching what you want.

Useful links:
– FreeTube
– LibreTube

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Facebook (I don’t care.)

There’s Friendica, which functions as a Facebook-style Fediverse option. But honestly, I have no interest in Facebook or Facebook-like sites anymore. There’s also Diaspora, though it doesn’t use ActivityPub and isn’t interoperable with the Fediverse.

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Others and Upcoming

I’m also still working on setting up my own Lemmy server, an alternative to Reddit. I’m having major issues with some of the self-hosting aspects so it’s still a work in progress. But you can easily make an account at lemmy.world or another popular server.

Owncast is an alternative to Twitch. I got it working in a test stream, and there are third-party services that will let you redirect streams to Twitch or YouTube if needed.

Bandwagon is an alternative to Bandcamp, and soon will be available for self-hosting with Stripe payment support (PayPal in the pipeline).

Loops is an upcoming Fediverse alternative to TikTok now accepting beta applications.

For blogging you have many options, writefreely (which this server uses), or if you’re used to something like WordPress, you simply need to activate the ActivityPub plugin to connect to the Fediverse.

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The Benefits of ActivityPub

One of the most powerful aspects of the Fediverse is interoperability. Users on Mastodon can follow Pixelfed accounts, users on Pixelfed can follow Mastodon accounts, and Mastodon users can even subscribe to PeerTube channels.

What this means is that you don’t have to sign up for a bunch of different apps if you don’t want to. You can subscribe to your favorite Pixelfed feeds or PeerTube channels directly from Mastodon, and get all the same updates (just in toot format). Some of the presentation isn’t always the prettiest, but it definitely works.

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The Challenges of Self-Hosting

Self-hosting is both extremely rewarding and insanely frustrating. To run Fediverse servers effectively you’ll want at least:

• Basic working knowledge of Linux and its filesystem
• Comfort with Docker (which simplifies a lot but introduces other problems that need solved)
• Networking and web server administration
• Database management (SQL, backups, migrations)

My own setup runs on a private network using Nebula with a Lighthouse server on a VPS, a self-host server on dedicated bare metal, and a reverse proxy server for HAProxy on a separate VPS. And that’s without factoring in storage over time. Most setups rely on consistent database backups, but if you’re running RAID 0 and a drive fails, your data is gone in an instant.

Self-hosting gives you freedom, but you also shoulder all the responsibility. It’s worth it if you want control, but it isn’t something to jump into blindly. When you self-host, you trade off the convenience of hosting being someone else’s problem with total control over your own data.

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Bonus: Text/Chat Alternatives

While this part isn’t about the Fediverse or social media exactly, it’s still connected.

Matrix

Matrix is a decentralized chat network that feels a bit like a modern successor to IRC. It’s still maturing, so expect some rough edges, but end-to-end encryption is built in, and the community is very FOSS-friendly.

Useful link: matrix.org

You can find me on Matrix at @incentive:matrix.circlewithadot.net

Signal (and WhatsApp)

One of my biggest battles over the last few years has been convincing people to move away from SMS, Messenger, or in-app DMs and onto Signal. It’s not 100% open source, but it’s one of the safest options for privacy right now.

If Signal is a hard sell, WhatsApp is usually easier to get people on board with. It’s not perfect, but it does use the Signal protocol under the hood, which at least makes me feel better about it than the other alternatives, just make sure to enable the enhanced privacy settings.

A side benefit that ties back to social media: in the absence of posting Instagram stories, I’ve found using the stories feature in Signal or WhatsApp just as fulfilling. Only my friends can see them, which feels right, since those moments are personal, it makes less and less sense to broadcast them to the whole world.

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tl;dr

As my incredible creation in GIMP above demonstrates: Fediverse and decentralized social media protect your freedom, your data, your privacy, and your sanity (mostly, as long as you don’t self-host). Since you’re not the product, you’re in control once again.

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Find me on the Fediverse

• Mastodon: @incentive@mastodon.circlewithadot.net
• Pixelfed: @incentive@pixelfed.circlewithadot.net
• PeerTube: @incentive@peertube.circlewithadot.net
• Lemmy: @incentive@lemmy.circlewithadot.net
• Owncast: owncast.circlewithadot.net

List of tools and solutions used for this post

• apostrophe (markdown writer)
• gimp (open source alternative to photoshop)
• github (storing images until I think of a better solution)

@incentive@mastodon.circlewithadot.net | @incentive:matrix.circlewithadot.net

@incentive@mastodon.circlewithadot.net | @incentive:matrix.circlewithadot.net